My question is about techniques that people with ADD use to manage working in the tech community.
I have ADD (the Attention Deficit Disorder and not the hyperactive type). I specifically picked the tech community because it's what I am in. In particular, it's a field that's not very tolerant or understanding of ADD issues (unlike something like art or creative writing), not because of any inherent flaws in the people but by its very nature.
In my case it means that I get very overwhelmed when first presented with a new problem and lots of information (documentation, notes from people, web links, papers, etc.)
It also means that even in an area I know well, my brain "misfires" and jumps to erroneous conclusions.
It is very easy for me to lose the thread of something, following along with verbal explanations is a bit of a challenge (e.g. something that the person said and even stressed, I can easily miss) and its very hard to switch tasks (partly because of the long "load" times of a previously "paged out" task).
I am also somewhat forgetful. My way of coping with this is to keep extensive notes, organize things such that conceptually close things are also physically close (for this reason lab notebooks with their fixed page ordering have never really worked for me), and generally keep my head down (don't volunteer for anything or take on any overly challenging assignments).
I get by and occasionally get good ideas, but I am considered something of a slowpoke.
As I progress in my career (read "get older") and with increasing demands on employees to deliver yesterday, matrix management encouraging multiple projects, and as time progresses my own notes accumulating and themselves needing some kind of management, needless to say this is becoming more challenging.
Q: What advice do others with similar issues in similar situations have?
PS: I have tried Adderall, it worked for a while but slowly began to lose effectiveness and I had trouble sleeping